


Unhappy Birthday

by michaeljagger



Category: The Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 14:28:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4610199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michaeljagger/pseuds/michaeljagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today is Roger Daltrey's birthday! But everyone else has forgotten... OR HAVE THEY???</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unhappy Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> I literally don't give a shit any more

Pete Townshend was having a lovely morning. The sun had come out for the first time in months, there was a show about dogs on the TV and he’d been awake for a full two hours and Roger hadn’t shouted at him yet. It was great, even if he couldn’t shake off the weird feeling that he was forgetting something.

                “PETER!”

                Pete jumped. Roger was standing in the door, looking very upset and clenching his fist threateningly. Pete had no idea what he had done this time, but he knew that it sometimes didn’t matter if he’d done anything. Still, he was determined not to let his morning be ruined.

                “Hello, Roger. Why don’t you come and sit - ”

                “SHUT THE HELL UP NERD!” Roger screamed, and he started punching Pete in the face. Pete sighed. This was very annoying.

                He noticed Roger was crying while he was hitting him, but this was quite normal, so Pete just sat back and waited for it to be over. That was, until he realised Roger was crying so much that he couldn’t even punch Pete any more.

                “Roger? What’s wrong?”

                “Nothing,” Roger sobbed, trying to wipe his eyes and accidentally punching himself in the face. Pete tenderly laid a hand on his shoulder.

                “Something must be wrong. You’re crying your eyes out.”

                “I’m not crying. It’s my hay fever.”

                Pete raised an eyebrow. “Roger, it’s winter.”

                “No, it’s not!” Roger said. “It’s March! The first of March, in fact!”

                “So? Why don’t you tell me what’s really - ”

                “BOG OFF JUSTINE LITTLEWOOD!” Roger shouted and ran out of the room. Pete watched him, feeling awful. The feeling of having forgotten something intensified, but he still couldn’t put his finger on what it was. After feeling his nose to check it wasn’t broken, he went to look for John or Keith to see if they knew.

                He found John in the next room, writing something out. It looked like a list, but Pete didn’t have time to wonder what it was a list of.

                “John?”

                “Yeah?” John didn’t look up.

                “Roger’s really upset about something.”

                John snickered. “Yeah, I know.”

                “What – you know? What’s he upset about?”

                John laughed evilly. “It’s his birthday. You forgot, didn’t you?”

                “Oh, no!” Pete wailed. “He’ll never forgive me! This is terrible!”

                “No, this is _great_ ,” said John. Pete really didn’t like the way he was laughing. “Me and Keith are pretending we forgot. But if you _actually_ forgot, well, that’s just the icing on the cake. The cake he’s not going to get.”

                “You _deliberately_ forgot?” Pete was aghast. “Why would you do something like that?”

                “Because he treats us like shit! Remember that time he forced me and Keith to unfuse and then locked us in separate cells on the Homeworld mothership?”

                Pete agreed that that was a totally harsh move on Roger’s part (come to Earth, they said. It’d be easy, they said), but he still didn’t think it justified ignoring his birthday. Pete loved birthdays. He knew the passing of time made certain people he could name sad, but to him there was nothing more magical than growing another year older. To deny Roger the chance to celebrate that – well, it was no more than cruelty, in Pete’s opinion.

                “Can’t you just forget it for one day? You only get one birthday a year.”

                “I can’t believe you’re defending him when he was literally just punching you in the face,” John said, but Pete could sense he was relenting.

                “Oh, go on. _Please_. We can make him some cards.”

                John sighed. “All right, then. If it’ll stop you going on about it.”

                Pete beamed. “Where’s Keith? He can join in too.”

                John suddenly looked shifty. “He’s out.”

                “Out where?”

                “Er – buying lube.”

                Pete suspected this was a lie, but was suitably disgusted anyway. “Gross.”

 

*             *             *

 

A few minutes later, Pete and John were sat on the floor surrounded by Pete’s arts and crafts equipment.

                “I love this,” Pete said happily, cutting hearts out of some red card. “We really need to do more arts and crafts together, as a band.”

                “Mm,” said John. He picked up a tube of silver glitter glue, but found, to his disgust, that it was almost empty. “These are going to look shit, Pete. Can’t we just buy him a car or something?”

                “It’s the thought that counts,” Pete said, pouring glitter onto his card.

                “S’pose,” John muttered. He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this. Why were literally all of Pete’s ideas so terrible?

                He was just contemplating faking his own death to get of this when he heard three quiet knocks on the wall behind him. Keith’s signal.

                “I have to go.”

                Pete pulled a face. “Why?”

                “Er - ” For someone who lead a life of deception and subterfuge, John was terrible at thinking up lies. “I just shat myself. I have to go and get changed.”

                “Gross.”

                John nodded, and slipped out of the room. In the hallway, he met a huge cardboard box with legs.

                “Did it go okay?” He took the cardboard box from Keith.

                “Yeah. Have you got everything ready?”

                “It’s not out yet, Pete’s been hanging around.” He considered asking Keith to go and help Pete make cards, but then he remembered that Keith had done nothing to deserve that. “Go and distract Roger and I’ll sort it. I think he’s in his room.”

                Keith nodded, and darted off to find Roger. John took the box into the kitchen; it wasn’t too heavy, but it was unwieldy and he knew he had to be very careful with it.

                Finally, he set it down on the table, then opened the cupboard under the sink and started to take out all the things he’d been hiding there. Balloons, check. Banner, check. Confetti, check (it said “Happy Retirement” but he didn’t think Roger would notice). John realised he’d left his checklist in the other room, but it was too risky to go and get it now.

                Once he had arranged all the decorations, he took the cake out of the box. It looked delicious. John wasn’t sure what Roger liked, so he’d just asked them to put lots of raisins in it. Who didn’t love raisins? He started to put the candles on it.

                “John, look!”

                John swore loudly. “Pete! What are you doing in here?”

                “I finished it!” He was holding up an object John assumed was a birthday card, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. “What do you think?”

                “It’s great, now why don’t you go outside and - ”

                “What’s all _this_?”

                Pete staggered backwards, staring at the display John had put on. His eyes finally came to rest on the banner.

                “That’s not how you spell ‘Daltrey’. Or ‘Roger’. Or ‘happy’.”

                “Well, it’s the thought that counts,” John said quickly. “Listen, Pete - ”

                “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to throw him a surprise party?”

                John groaned as Pete’s lip trembled. “Don’t look at me with them big ol’ eyes.”

                “I could’ve helped.”

                “Pete, you can’t keep a secret. You would’ve told him.”

                “No I wouldn’t,” Pete said, guiltily hiding the carrier pigeon that had been just about to take a message to Roger.

               

*             *             *

 

“Hey there, little guy! What’s got you down?”

                Keith froze halfway through the door, remembering that Roger had literally murdered the last person to call him “little guy”, but Roger just looked at him, tears all over his beautiful face. It looked like he had been listening to Martha and the Vandellas’ entire discography again.

                “If you don’t know, I’m not telling you.”

                “You wanna hear a joke?”

                “No.”

                “Why did Pete throw the butter out of the window?”

                “He did what?” Roger sat up suddenly. “Does he think he can just waste food like that? I’ll teach him not to - ”

                Keith heard two knocks on the wall. He knocked back once, then turned to Roger.

                “He didn’t really. I made it up. Why don’t we go in the kitchen and you can see for yourself?”

                “You _lied_ to me? You little - ”

                “Come on.” Keith pinned Roger’s arms forcefully to his sides. Amazingly, he didn’t try to fight back, but just started crying again and let Keith lead him into the kitchen.

 

*             *             *

 

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

                Roger stared at the decorations, at Pete, John and Keith, and at the cake. He was so shocked that he didn’t even notice the pigeon land softly in his hair.

                “I thought – I thought you’d all forgotten.”

                “As if we’d ever forget,” said Keith. “Me and John spent weeks planning this.”

                Roger rushed over and hugged both of them. “Thank you,” he whispered.

                “No problem,” said Keith, ruffling his hair. “We just wanted you to have a good day.”

                “Pete actually did forget, though,” said John cheerfully.

                “Pete, you little shit, I fucking hate you,” said Roger, but he gave Pete a hug as well, and felt something poking him in chest. “What’s this?”

                Pete turned red. “Just – just a card. I made it.”

                Keith laughed. “That card looks completely shit. Want me to burn it for you?”

                “No! Wait.” Roger took Keith’s lighter from him. “It’s my birthday. I should get to burn it.”

                Everyone agreed, so Roger burned the card himself. The flames turned lots of cool colours because of all the glitter Pete had used. Then they all had some cake, and that night Pete cried himself to sleep.

                It was the best birthday ever.

               


End file.
